We
spent our Honeymoon driving through Switzerland and Germany in July of
1999. On Monday, July 26, after leaving Munich (München), we drove
south to the
small Bavarian town of Oberammergau
(town map).
The town of about 5,000 people is in a valley next to a
small meandering river called the Ammer. I had once visited this town
back
in 1989 with a friend of mine, so I was a little familiar with it.
After
driving into the town, we checked into the Hotel Böld
on König Ludwig Straße (King Ludwig
street). We had a great
room
with a balcony overlooking the Ammer River and the Bavarian
countryside.

If you look at the
picture at left you can see Debbie waving from the balcony outside of
our
room on the 3rd floor. We had a pleasent room decorated in local
designs. We had a balcony that overlooked the Ammer River. Again, you
can see the German custom of growing
flowers
everywhere.
In the left of the photo you see a banner with a circle of gold stars.
That's the flag of the European Union (established in 1993) of which
Germany is a member. At night, when we we were having dinner in the
hotel's restaurant
outside on the
patio, we heard cow bells. As we ate, we watched local
farmers
walking their cows (a number of them) along the street in front of us.
The cars all politely pull over and let them pass. It's a sight you
don't see in Bayonne.

Oberammergau
is famous for the frescoes painted on the walls of the houses. Some
have
Bavarian pictures, but most have religious themes. Franz
Seraph Zwinck(1748-1792), the
"inventor"
of the Italian-influenced fresco technique known as "Lüftlmalerei"
(house wall painting), lived
and worked here in the 18th century.
Zwinck decorated a great many
beautiful
facades in Oberammergau and
its area.
The most prominent of them would
be the "Forsthaus" (Forest House),
the "Mußldomahaus" and the
"Pilatushaus" (Pontius Pilate House). Also there are two very nice
houses located at the
entrance of Oberammergau, the "Hänsel und Gretelhaus" (pictured on
left - I didn't take this picture - I meant to everytime I drove past
it, but somehow forgot ).Everything
you see
on the walls
on the building in the photo (on right) from
pictures to the draped curtains to the fancy framing around the
windows
is painted on. This scene has a Bavarian theme to it.
There
is a band on the left side of the building (closeup at left) with a man
and women dancing. The drum has the
Bavarian
colors on it. In the center of the building
there is a bunch of guys
sitting around a table having a drink.
You can see the blue and white checkered Bavarian flag in the center
(pictured left). On the right is a women
roasting a chicken
(or some bird) on a spit next to a dog and donkey. On top, between the
upper windows appears to be plaques on the walls, but they are painted
on also. The only things real are the windows. The paintings are not
easy to do.
Watercolors are painted onto the fresh plaster. You have to work fast
before the plaster dries. However, it gives the town a very distinct
character.

This
store (at right) is painted with scenes from Christ's crucifixion
(there
is that tourist from Bayonne leaning on the lamp post). This is not
surprising
when you consider that the Passion Play is held in Oberammergau every
ten
years. In 1633, in the middle
of the Thirty Years War, after months of suffering and death from the
plague, the surviving Oberammergauers swore an oath that they would
perform the "Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord
Jesus Christ" every ten years.On Pentecost
Sunday in 1634, they fulfilled
their pledge for the first time on a stage they erected in the cemetery
above the fresh graves of the plague victims. In the year 2000, the
town of Oberammergau had performed the play for the 40th time. Passion Plays
were very popular
in cities throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. However, they were
banned in many cities in the 16th century. Oberammergau was the only
place were the tradition lived on. Local people play the rolls. In the
months leading up to a play, many of the villagers start growing
their beards in preparation for the play. The hundreds of
actors,
children as well as adults, receive no pay for their time and devotion
to the exhausting performances (seven hours a day, five days a week
from
May until October). They
recently built a new
4,800
seat theater in the town with the world's largest open-air stage.
Despite this, tickets
for
the performances are very hard to get.

Here
are some more street scenes from around Oberammergau. It was a lot
different
staying here then in the last number of cities we were in. The pace is
a lot slower and the town in a lot quieter. The picture on the left is
Dorf Platz. The Lang Sel. Erben building has cactuses on the
balcony. In the background you can see Kofel
Mountain (4,400 ft.).Strolling
around Oberammergau's
maze of cobbled streets is pleasant. The
Catholic parish church, built in 1749, has an interesting dome
(pictured at left). We strolled through the churchyard looking
at some of the graves.

They
have a
lot of great
shops here.
The Kathe Wohlfahrt
Christmas Store was very busy. We bought a number of ornaments,
wooden hand-carved nutcrackers and
our own Christmas carousel (photo right). The candles cause the
wheel at the top of the carousel to spin, turning the figures (like the
Three Wise Men and shepards with their sheep) on the four levels below.
I bought one in the same store back in 1989 for my
mother and now Debbie and I had one for our house.

We
also
visited a wood carvers store.
Oberammergau is famous for it's wood carvers. They have a number of
them in Oberammergau (a town advertisement says they have 120 wood
carvers). The roots of
Oberammergau's wood carvings go back to the Middle Ages. A manuscript
dated to the year 1111 first mentioned monks who brought "…the Ammergau
art of carving small household goods out of wood..." to the area of
Berchtesgaden.

We
bought a
nativity manager, all hand carved. The owner, Edgar Schwer, was
doing his wood carving in the store while we were looking around.

After
our two day stay in Oberammergau, we left. We drove through Austria,
stopping in Innsbruck before arriving at our next stop, Lindau im
Bodensee.

On
July 27 and 28, we visited the royal castles in
Bavaria
near Oberammergau. One is a castle and the other is a small
palace. As European castles go, they are quite modern, both being built
in the latter part of the 19th century. They were both built for King
Ludwig II of
Bavaria (a.k.a. Mad King Ludwig).

The
first one we visited was Neuschwanstein
Castle (pictured left) in the town of Hohenschwangau.This
was a longer
drive from Oberammergau. We had to drive though Austria to get there.
The scenery in the Alps was very impressive. We eventually made it to
the city of Füssen
and from there to Hohenschwangau.This
is King Ludwig's
magnificent and most famous castle, built in the neo-late romanesque
style. With its turrets and mock-medievalism, its interior styles
ranging from Byzantine through Romanesque to Gothic. It's a real
fairy-tale fantasy come true. The
castle was the inspiration for Walt Disney's Cinderella's Castle in
Disneyland. The castle is built up in the mountains (which made
construction very difficult). You have to
hike up the road to the castle which will take about a half-hour or
take one of the horse drawn wagons. They give tours through the castle.

In
1866,
Bavaria became subjugated by
Prussia. So, King Ludwig II was no longer a sovereign ruler and became
a king in name only. To compensate for this, he began
planning his own
kingdom, in the form of castles and palaces, where he could be a
real king if only in his imagination (which he had plenty of).

Schloß
Neuschwanstein
is Germany's most-visited
and most-photographed building ("Schloß" or "Schloss" is the
German word for castle). It is well
known throughout the world from magazine ads to TV commercials. On any
given day, they get around 12,000 visitors and around 1.3
million per
year. Tours are given in German, English and French.

They
started construction of Neuschwanstein castle in 1869. The castle was
never fully completed but King Ludwig II moved in in 1884. It was
very difficult to build especially when you consider the mountain
terrain it is situated in. Ludwig wanted the castle to be a monument to
Richard Wagner and his operas, "in the true style of the old German
knights." Ludwig II didn't live here very long, only
172 days. The Bavarian Government declared him insane and he was
arrested in the bedroom of his castle (after bankrupting the government
building the castle, he wanted to build more - no one wonder he was
declared insane).

The tour
takes you through
the many rooms in the castle (you actually go into 15 of the rooms).
Ludwig meant the castle to be a retreat place for him. A place he could
lose himself in Medieval legends. The tour starts in the servants
rooms and move into the Lower
Hall. The Lower Hall is decorated with scenes from Wagner's opera,
"Ring des Nibelungen". From
there you enter the Throne
Room, which resembles a Byzantine church. Ludwig wanted it
based on "St. Sophia in Constantinople" (Hagia Sophia in Istanbul). The
actual throne was never built. The balcony has incredible views of the
lake among the Alps.

You
next go into the
king's private rooms.
The first is the Dining
Room. Ludwig liked to eat alone. He didn't even like the servants
being around. The food was sent up through a small elevator from the
kitchen, three floors below. Next is Ludwig's
bedroom (picture at right). This is the only Gothic room in the place.
His bed is
incredible. It took 14 men around four years to carve the bed and other
decorations in the room. Ludwig sure knew how to sleep in style.

You
pass through some other
rooms before you come to
the Grotto.
This very unusual room is designed to look like a cave. He even had a
small waterfall installed. On the fourth floor, there is the largest
room in the castle, the Singers'
Hall. This hall was built so Ludwig could listen to Wagner's operas
(though he never actually got to do this.) The legend of the Holy Grail
is predominate in the artwork in the Singer's Hall.The story of the Grail King Parsival,
the father of Lohengrin, begins in the Tribune Passage from the Upper
Hall and is the theme of the Singers' Hall itself. This legend revolves
around the Holy Grail – the vessel which was used at the Last Supper
and in which the blood of the crucified Jesus Christ was collected. The
Grail, an object of veneration, was allegedly kept in Montsalvat
Castle. After many adventures and wanderings Parsival became Grail King
and was thus entrusted with the task of protecting it. On the left is a picture
of a wall painting of Parsival in the Singers' Hall. This theme is
throughout the hall. From there you go
down
spiral staircases to the Kitchen
on the ground floor. It is preserved exactly as it was in Ludwig's
days. This is the end of the tour inside the castle, though you can
still walk around the
grounds outside of the castle.There
are a
number of trails through the mountains around the castle. There is a
path that takes you around the castle. A steel bridge, called the
Marienbrücke (Marie's Bridge), takes you over Pollät
Gorge. The picture of us here was taken from the bridge. My advice,
don't look down, the gorge is 295 feet below the bridge. After
crossing the bridge, the
path takes you up into the mountains. There is a great view of the
castle from the top, though Debbie and I didn't hike up it (it would
take a couple of hours for the roundtrip walk). We did hike
back down to the bottom, where we went to lunch. Hohenschwangau has a
number of great places
to eat. Just be careful to read the menu and know exactly what you are
ordering.

Prince
Ludwig (Louis) was born on August 25, 1845 in Nymphenburg Castle
in Munich (München) as
a member
of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Ludwig, and his
brother Otto, had a strict
upbringing. They barely knew their parents, Crown Prince Maximilian II
of Bavaria and Marie of Prussia. His
grandfather was King Ludwig I of Bavaria who was forced to abdicate
in 1848 (when Ludwig was two), after a scandal involving an affair with
an actress.

On
March 10, 1864, after the death of his father,
Ludwig, "The Swan King", became King of Bavaria at the age of 18. Two
years later,
the Kingdom of Prussia, under Otto von Bismarck, conquered Austria and
Bavaria in the
"Austro-Prussian War" of 1866. From then on, Bavarian's foreign policy
was dictated by Prussia and the Bavarian king became only a "vassal" of
the
Prussian Emperor (who was also his uncle).

After
this, Ludwig lost all interest in
politics and became
increasingly eccentric. He built three castles, Linderhof,
Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee (all at incredible cost to the
Bavarian government). He lived a life of fantasy and seclusion,
immersing himself in theater and music, especially the operas of
Richard Wagner.

In 1886,
the Bavarian government declared
Ludwig insane and he
was arrested and imprisoned in Berg Castle near Munich. Three days
later, on June 3, he drowned in Lake Starnberg near the castle at the
age of 41 under mysterious circumstances. He is
buried in the royal tomb in St. Michael's Church in Munich.

Today, Ludwig is a beloved national hero
of Bavaria. You can find
his picture on everything from flags to beer steins.

Linderhof Castle

The next
day, we visited
Schloß Linderhof. It was a lot
closer to Oberammergau then Neuschwanstein. This was Ludwig's favorite
castle and
the only person that ever got invited there was Richard Wagner. As it
turned out Wagner never took up the offer to go to Linderhof.

The
castle was built for King Ludwig. It was built deep in the forest in
one of the valleys of the Ammergau Alps. The Bavarian royalty reserved
this area as a private hunting ground. King Maximilian II (Ludwig's
father) had a small wooden hunting lodge here. After Ludwig II became
king, he decided to have his own modest villa built here (as if there
was anything modest about Ludwig).

Construction
started in 1869 and wasn't finished until 1879. It was the only one of
Ludwig's three castles that was completed.
It's style is a mixture of Renaissance
and baroque. It was built inside to resemble a small Versailles Palace
(Ludwig admired King
Louis XIV of France). There is even a small Hall of Mirrors with a
one-ton crystal chandelier.

There
is a 20-minute tour of the palace. It is full
of artwork and painted ceilings.
The Dining Room is very unique. The "magic" table can be lowered into
the kitchen below and completely set, then raised back into the Dinning
Room. This way Ludwig would never have to see his servants. His bedroom
looks like a palace throne room (pictured on left - this is not my
picture - you are not allowed to take photos inside). The blue-canopied
bed is 8.5 feet long and a little over eight feet wide. The walls are
done in gold guild and there is a gigantic crystal chandelier. Around
the bed is a large gold railing (who knows what Ludwig wanted it for).
I could see myself waking up here every morning.

The
grounds around Linderhof have terraced gardens with many fountains.
There are English,
French and Italian gardens. In
the center of the pool in front of Linderhof there is a large guided
statue with fountain that shoots water high into the sky. This is next
to the 1.5 million square foot English Garden.

On
the grounds near
the castle, there is a man-made underground Grotto, built especially
for Ludwig as a personal theater. The idea was that he could float in a
golden shell-shaped boat while listening to Wagner's operas.
Unfortunately, it had terrible acoustics so there were never any
performances held there. Still, Ludwig liked to be rowed out into the
middle of the grotto. The lighting would be switched to all red so
Ludwig could imagine he was in the mountain cave of Venus. It's all
quite impressive.